


To Cut Down a Tree

by datsacloud (fraisemilk), fraisemilk



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, Trees, seasonal angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraisemilk/pseuds/datsacloud, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraisemilk/pseuds/fraisemilk
Summary: "I know what you think," Ginko says quietly. You do not doubt he does; he’s always had this uncanny way of guessing your thoughts, of seeing the deeper truth and its layers. So with a shrug you reply:"Life must go on."_______Adashino waits, and waits, and waits. Ginko walks, walks, and walks. In-between they meet, and they talk.
Relationships: Adashino & Ginko (Mushishi), Adashino/Ginko (Mushishi)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	1. Late afternoon

It is the end of the day, and you can almost distinguish the last rays of the sun through the heavy fog that hangs above the horizon.

Your day was not particularly busy. It reached its most interesting point when Mioko, the oldest of the Ashikano siblings, had brought you a weird-shaped fish and inquired if they could eat it. No one else had come since then, so you had time to prepare some tea and sit idly on the edge of the patio, looking out for signs of Ginko’s arrival. White eyelashes, the strange odor of his cigarettes, the slow pad of his feet, a natural or surreal disaster, a horde of mushis... He’s been away since dawn, allegedly to find a particular kind of shell that _you_ cannot see, but you have noticed his restlessness upon discovering the changes that have befallen the town during his two-year absence. You are guessing he spent the day the same way he has yesterday, threading the new streets and examining clues of the impact the city’s development had on mushi life.

Perhaps not only mushi life, you think when Ginko finally appears on the path that leads to the front door and, before you have time to say anything, announces:

"They cut down another tree this afternoon."

Ginko pronounces the word _tree_ as if it means _limb_. Maybe it does, for him, and those who like him see things that, to others, choose to remain invisible. You observe him silently as he approaches and sits next to you. His hair and eye are ever the same, uncanny and ghostly and bright; an odd beauty, something out of a dream, of a ghost, or a mushi. But there is a pallor to his skin, a slowness to his demeanor, that do not befit him. They have been cutting trees since the beginning of times, you want to tell him. It’s not like _you_ lost a limb! But you know it is different for him now, in this time. It is true that they have been cutting many trees; too many, perhaps. Already the forest on the eastern hills has halfway disappeared, its lovely edge replaced with new buildings. The harbor has grown, and with it the population of the village-become-city, and of course its needs.

You imagine the way Ginko must have stood, close by the location where they were cutting down that tree, the way his head tilted down, down, down, the way he must have mourned, along with the animals and mushis that had slept in this tree, eaten its fruits, scratched its bark. As you imagine the scene you begin to ache too, for the tree that has died today, again, another tree, another small universe. But you also think of the house or the street that will stand in its place, of the wealth of goods that will cross the path to the tree’s grave; there is nothing to be done. A limb for a house: life goes on.

"I know what you think," Ginko says quietly. You do not doubt he does; he’s always had this uncanny way of guessing your thoughts, of seeing the deeper truth and its layers. So with a shrug you reply:

"Life must go on."

Ginko does not reply. You think you might have hurt him; you do not know what to do, what to say to make this somehow unfamiliar, tired Ginko content again. Some things have to go, you are tempted to say. But you do not: you would not want him to think he has to go, too.

When you wake up the next day, Ginko is gone. You know it will not be just for the day, this time. He will be back in a few months, at the end of Winter. Although that is only your guess.


	2. Twigs and shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow I will go up on the hill, you think. Ginko would go. I will see things differently, if I see them cutting it down.

Autumn has passed like a sweet dream, and given its last red and yellow farewells. Now the sweet smell of rotting leaves and life recedes, as frost clings to twigs and shadows. It is no longer easy to keep track of time, now. How many hours of daylight will there be today, how many were there yesterday? How much time has been given up to the night, to hollow gaps, to mist and the beautiful moonlight? Even the colors of the sea have changed, and with them the sky’s, as the world tips into the silver pale, glacial gray winter.

The glow of the white sand at night has dimmed down to a shimmer. Creatures retreat into their shells, fish turn toward warmer streams. Your feet slide farther down the blanket, towards his, and you breath in at the same time he breathes in.

Something stirs in the shadows.

You think of what he told you, and try to remember the things you heard but didn’t listen to. Your feet slide farther down the blanket, trying to find his, and you breathe out at the same time you realize he isn’t here.

Tomorrow up on the hill, they will cut down an old yakusugi. The roots are the most troublesome part, the apothecary told you -- they dug deep into the earth, in-between rocks. The villagers will have to leave them there. They are part of the hill now. They hold it all together.

In a hundred years maybe, people will try to dig there and find the roots still alive, somehow, without the trunk. Maybe they will be gone, rotten away, eaten away, and only the faults and hollows left like a scar in the core of the hill will remain; a few ghostly signs. The houses that were built in its place will be gone, too. You try to imagine other houses and other trees, other people, other languages. You try to imagine yourself mourning for all those things that were, all those things that will disappear, and will never be remembered. A smudge of sadness forms in your belly for the tiny things: the kettle your grandmother used (and that someone broke by accident, one day), the tea leaves you use in the morning (their flavor never exactly the same). For the big things, the sadness is a lake so dark you dare not let it engulf you completely: the mushis you’ve never seen (will you ever?), Ginko sitting there in the room with you. All these things already livid, pale, a glaze of what they once were, slowly tipping back into the darkness : what was the color of the kettle, how much tea is there left, will the mushis ever let themselves be seen, or simply become even more invisible?

_Tomorrow I will go up on the hill_ , you think. Ginko would go. _I will see things differently, if I see them cutting it down_. Aoi Ashikano refused to eat meat the moment she saw a villager skin a rabbit. _Perhaps I will understand_.

You fall back asleep like this, wishing as a scientist would, _let a thing that is observed let itself be understood_. The next day the sound of the tree toppling down (the wood creaking, squeaking, groaning like any dying creature) will not outwardly tell you anything new, but the grave, almost somber expression on the faces of those that are present will.

And so for some time you stay standing next to the trunk, your head full with its presence, the leafy green sappy smell of it, the remaining living signs of it. Big and tiny things, gone, or rather, going.

Bark, branches, trunk…

And you let yourself feel sorrow for the big and tiny things that will remain.

Hill, roots, faults, scars…

And then, you head back home.

During your walk downhill you think – ah, you think: how foolish, how immature, how absurd! There is no way you, Adashino, could fully understand, or even entirely experience the death of a tree -- how many more eyes would you need? How many more lungs, arms, how many more visions and dreams? A shudder comes, as it always does, as you let yourself acknowledge how impossible those things you cannot see are. Mushis are invisible. Death is invisible. Nobody remembers the kettle’s color: has anyone even noticed it is gone, now? Did anyone pay attention to its sound when it shattered?

And so you ache for Ginko’s sly smile, for his warmth.

The woods (those will be gone soon, too) calm you down with their murmur. Birds and their chatter, chestnuts tumbling down the crown of their trees, the wind detaching leaves from their branches. But soon the path leads you out of the blubbering forest, onto the cleared flank of the hill. The sky is already turning to darker shades in the east. As you descend, for a moment the entire city turns gray under your gaze, as gray as the sea. Only the vegetation burns red and yellow, auburn and brown. Then the view is hidden, the colors come back, the smells of the city (fish, smoke, people), its sounds, its agitation crowd your senses.

You halt in front of your house, slightly out of breath, and smile at the apparition that is sitting right by the door.

“It’s rare seeing you out. At a patient’s?” Ginko says, smelling even from a few meters away of his smoke.

“I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” you reply. “No, I was…” You hesitate, feeling oddly out of place. “It was a sort of funeral.”

Ginko frowns at the expression, puzzled. He leaves you some time (time enough to recover your breath and sit next to him) before asking:

“Has someone sort of died?”

“The yakusugi up that hill,” you answer, pointing at the hill on the far left. “It caught a disease, and was struck by lightning in June.” _And the town needed the space to build some more houses_.

Ginko nods to that, as chatty as usual. Through his coat you can feel his warmth.

* * *

The silence of winter is a tremor in your chest, a quiver in your stomach. A light chill on your thoughts that pushes them toward the gaps all around you, a buzz, a growl, a hum, something that disturbs without seeming to, and tips your dreams to unseemly fields. You are used to this silence. You have spent many winter nights like this, lying awake as the whole village sleeps. Yet something tonight is different, a door left ajar letting in the cold.

You push away the blanket, unnerved -- something about its warmth, how heavy it feels on your limbs, against your chest.

From the corner of your eyes, you think you notice a mushi rubbing its faint presence on the ceiling. It is gone when you turn your head to see it.

_Adashino_ , you whisper to yourself. _Adashino_ , and your name works like a spell, breaking the dreamy bubble that you had found yourself in. Ginko has told you about mushis that contain people’s dreams, unravel them or distort them until reality itself has become the reverie. Although this time you are the only one to blame, as you had far too much warm sake the night before. You sigh, and pull back the blanket over yourself. The silence is back now, and with it the cold. You sigh again, and fall back asleep.

A mushi rubs its faint presence on a corner of the ceiling. No one is here to see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have liked to publish this in winter (well, it technically still is winter, but the magpies are making their nests and I just spotted a bumblebee). Earlier in the season, maybe.  
> I lost someone in December, and it all spilled into this story. Does it sound like Ginko is dead?  
> Perhaps he is. What do you think?  
> Nothing in this in linear, time is not real, and as usual I have no idea where I'm going with this fic! We'll figure this out, I'm sure. :)  
> Take care everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> I've started writing this last Winter, when things were strange but not quite as strange as now. I guess this story will retrace the last 7 months, in a way. And try to retrace the relationship between a doctor and an eternal wanderer.  
> There is no set end to this yet, but I do think it will only be a few chapters long. 
> 
> Kudos are welcome. Alas, comments are fuel to my ego and my writing.


End file.
